So-called “endpoint” or “room” or “group” apparatuses dedicated to video conferences with multiple participants present simultaneously in meeting rooms and the like are known.
Generally, the known apparatuses are provided with a camera, one or more screens, microphones and loudspeakers and are installed by specialized operators inside the rooms they must serve.
However, such known apparatuses are generally very costly and have little flexibility, since they are not easily and rapidly adaptable to the different needs of users.
A known alternative to this type of apparatuses is the use of systems of the “desktop” type, made up of a PC, a monitor, loudspeakers, a webcam, a microphone and, naturally, software for video conferences.
This type of apparatuses is very economical and quite effective if a user wants to take part in a video conference, for example, from their desk, but does not effectively meet the needs of a video conference in a room with multiple participants.
In fact, in the case of use in a meeting room, the PC is generally connected to a television set placed at one end of the meeting room, and on which the webcam is mounted. The microphone is commonly connected to the PC and placed on top of a table in the meeting room.
Due to the limited framing angle of a webcam, which in general is 90° at most, it is easy to understand that the aforesaid solution largely undermines the effectiveness of the video conference, since the majority of people taking part in it are either not clearly visible due to the excessive distance or are even not captured by the webcam and, as a consequence, it is possible only to hear their voice.
In order to remedy this limitation, sometimes the conference participants move closer to one another, getting into uncomfortable positions, and above all considerably reducing the effectiveness of communication in the video conference session.
The patent application US 2013/0307919 A1 refers to video conferencing equipment. This document describes a multiple camera (multi-camera) device having a plurality of input ports, each configured to receive video information when connected to a respective external video camera, and an output port capable of outputting video information. The multi-camera device includes also a selection component configured to provide video information from at least one of the plurality of input ports to the output port for output to an external computer. The selection component may produce composite video information from video information received from multiple input ports. Whatever video conferencing software may be installed on the external computer (e.g., Skype, WebEx, or AdobeConnect, etc.). Audio/video information from multiple cameras, either as video from a single camera that changes as the speaker changes or as composite video information displaying multiple participants, may be transmitted to a remote location via one or more networks to which the external computer is connected. Despite representing an improvement with respect to other known techniques, the system described in US 2013/0307919 A1 is still not satisfactory, because the plural participants to the conference in a room cannot always properly follow the interventions of the participants in the remote location, due to the fact that the participants in the remote location are only displayed on the screen of the external device running the video conferencing software. In particular, when the screen of the external device running the video conferencing software is small and there is a large number of participants attending the conference, following the interventions of the participants in the remote location is difficult and inconvenient. The technique of US 2013/0307919 A1 is applicable to the case of an impromptu video conference, i.e. a video conference carried out in the absence of an installed dedicated video conference equipment (such as a large TV set or screen). In such cases of impromptu video conference, the solution of the prior art is particularly dissatisfactory, because it is difficult to properly follow the intervention of the participants at the remote location as above mentioned. As a further drawback of the prior art, the gaze of a local participant is normally directed towards the screen of the laptop for watching the remote participants, and not towards the respective video camera capturing the image of the local participant; as a consequence, the remote participants do not have the impression that the local participants are looking towards them during the conference; in other words, no eye-to-eye contact can be established between the local participants and the remote participants. This renders the conference even less effective.